Dinah's Story

It was late Autumn, and it'd been daylight for a little while...well...what stood for daylight at any rate. The feeble rays that filtered through the sparse trees were not much to speak of.

Evenso, it was getting annoying.

Dinah Fox groaned, pulling her arm up over her face against the sunlight, and reluctantly pulled herself up to a seated position, rubbing her eyes.

This proved to be her first mistake as she was greeted by the sensation of something warm and damp smearing across her face, and the unmistakable scent of the top commodity in their world: Blood.

Don't be a person. Dinah thought as she opened her eyes and turned. Please don't be a person.
She looked over to her side and was greeted by the empty eyes of a fallow deer, who was by that point, very very dead, its neck broken right around and underside ripped apart by enormous claws and teeth, pieces of its steaming viscera decorating the dead leaves.

Looked like wolfy had had a pretty successful night.

Most of the time she tended t prefer locking up down in the crypt for the night, as at least she'd know where she'd be when she woke up in the morning, but Wolfy got a bit antsy if it was denied the chance to rip something to bloody ribbons for too long, and this was at least going to provide them with some decent meat for a few days. Cut off the chewed bits and they'd have themselves some pretty nice venison.

The young girl hopped to her feet, not as self-conscious as she perhaps should be about the fact that she was naked, filthy and covered in blood, her hair wild and matted with leaves. It was a bit too normal to get worked up about. She'd been through this every month for as long as she could remember and even the weirdest things could feel like routine after this long.

She never remembered the actual change itself, though if what she had been told was true, it involved an awful lot of screaming. Supposedly, a werewolf change was one of the most painful experiences you could hope to experience. It was simultaineously more bones fracturing that you could count, muscles tearing and reforming, and organs each dying and re-starting as they grew in size. It was pretty horrible if you thought about it too much...

...which was why Dinah Fox didn't tend to think about it.

She made a mental note of where Mr Deer had met his tragic end and waded out onto the path, where a old sports' bag hung from a tree, a few feet out of reach of any....large vicious animal that might be keen on ripping it apart.

Having shimmied up the tree to knock it down, Dinah checked out her 'morning after' survival kit that she usually took out. A towel, a washcloth, clean clothes, hair tie, toothbrush and toothpaste. Clothes never survived the night so it was better to take some and hide them out of Cujo's way til morning.

The stream was pretty freezing at that time of day, and washing in it was a part Di hardly relished....but it did leave her looking a little more presentable and a bit less grisly. People did not tend to respond to blood round the mouth very well. She has just finished pulling on her clothes, a faded khaki T-shirt and denim shorts, when she caught sight of another figure, a young man, making his way back along the path.

Cyrus Fox was already fully dressed, and was twisting some bits of bramble out of his hair and looking displeased. Well, Cyrus Fox always looked displeased.

"Morning Dickhead." Di greeted as she hopped up next to her older brother, tying her hair back from her face as they fell into step.
"Caught a deer last night. You gonna help me bring it back, or you just gonna be useless all your life?"

"Is this your idea of a charm offensive?" the young man asked, regarding her sceptically with one dark eyebrow raised.
"And you wonder why you don't have a boyfriend."

"You don't really count as a boy. I'm super charming to everyone else." Di declared as they rounded the corner to the deer and each grabbed hold of two legs each. Werewolves were pretty strong, and Di could've handled it on her own at a push, but she'd rather had someone doing stuff for her, given the chance.

A bit of lifting and dragging, the top of the old church started to come into view. Most village churches had been destroyed in the invasion, but a few remained as their own villages had fallen to ruin years before then. Only ivy-covered walls and mossy beams showed evidence of any other buildings existing there, but the church had remained together, along with the crumbling headstones up around it. Such things emblazoned with crosses and prayers, were repellent to the leeches.

As her brother dropped the deer on the steps, The female werewolf went up to the old, wooden doors and knocked three times, before shouting and displaying her usual level of humour.

"Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in!"

Dallas' eyes shot open as he laid naked, covered in blood in the forest next to a pond, for some reason his wolf likes to change back near water. He stood up with all his bones cracking and popping. Dallas looked around and saw a buck lying their, torn to pieces. "You gave me a good chase friend. You should be proud." Dallas said to the dead deer.
Dallas kneeled over the pond and started washing away the blood, and dirt that covered his body. He cupped his hand in the water and took a few sips of the pond water. It was nasty, but he can't exactly be picky living in the forest. Dallas took the buck by it's antlers and started dragging it to his current hideout.
After 15 minutes Dallas made it back to his current home, a cave hidden deep within the woods. The entrance was hidden by a large, wooden palate that was covered in leaves, and vines. As long as no one is looking closely enough, they wouldn't even notice that a cave is there. Dallas tossed the palate aside, and continued to drag the buck's carcass inside.
The inside of his den was littered with things he stolen from travelers, the benefit of living so near the ferals is that they get blamed for the robberies, and he doesn't raise any suspicion. Dallas rummaged through his stuff, and pulled out a white t-shirt, blue jeans, a belt, and boxers, and threw them on. Dallas then put on a green hoodie, and a black leather jacket. He then pulled out his knife, and revolver. He tucked the gun in the back of his pants, and attached his knife's sheath to his belt.

Doc woke up and let out a loud, almost grizzly bear-like yawn. As he got up he picked up a dirty sleeveless shirt that was laying in the floor next to his cot, and put it on. Once up he put on a dirty pair of black jeans, a worn out pair of socks, and a equally worn out pair of boots. Once he was finished putting on his clothes, he grabbed his brown toboggan hat, and his golden cross necklace. "Another day in paradise." Doc sighed.
As he got up he could hear one of the wolves knocking on the door, and yelling out lame puns. Doc opened up the door as he put on his hat and necklace. "You know, I had hoped by now that you'd grown out of making those lame ass wolf puns. They make you sound like a dork." Doc greeted with a big smile. "And please don't be so loud. Not all of us are comfortable being awake at this ungodly hour." Doc then looked down at the deer they were dragging. "So, who's your friend?"

"I'll stop making them when they stop being funny." Dinah responded chirpily, beaming at the appearance of Doc at the door. She was pretty friendly to the majority of the people in the group, almost as if to offset her brother's general surliness.

"They were NEVER funny." Cyrus muttered as her hauled the deer up the top himself.

"Then I guess the means I'll never stop making them." Di replied with a shrug and she turned to the fallen animal.

"And this is Mr Deer. Mr Deer and Wolfy got on extremely well, so much that Wolfy wanted to take a piece of Mr Deer with her forever. And apparently that piece game from Mr Deer's lower intestine. It's a bit chewed in parts but most of the meat is still good. We can butcher it and salt some of it to pull out in Winter." she remarked. They had to keep in mind what they would eat over the cold months when the foraging dried out. Berries, mushrooms, nettles and such were all well and good when the weather was not too terrible, but the cold months were harsh. They tended to have to resort to stealing...and that was when things got really tricky. Di was doing her best to make up the store as much as possible to help them avoid it. It helped that they'd managed to liberate a couple of hens whose crate had fallen off the back of a stock truck, and who were currently roosting in the chancel and laying a reasonable number of eggs.


"Anything exciting happen while we were gone? " she added after a moment, hopping over and peering inside as if in hope that anything had changed significantly between around eight o' clock the night before when they'd left to put some distance between the church and the wolves. Generally the wolves would be too busy hunting to roam too wide, but it wasn't always the case.
"Did ya miss us?"


----

"I was saying to Cindy just the other day that I'm on the verge of making a formal complaint. I mean, this is Dog work. I don't see why Beckett lands us with these crappy jobs. Place is nasty and the walk out here is killing my feet."

Two figures made their way along a path at a fairly slow rate, dragging something behind them.

"That's because you wear those shitty shoes with no arch support. "

Behind them, on the earth and gravel left on the path, smears of dark red were left where their burden had pulled along the ground.

"That's all just a load of made-up bull. I just dunno why they've got to put the stiff pits so far away from the town."

The two individuals were men, vampires in fact, dressed in the uniform of orderlies, the words 'Morningside Research' printed neatly onto the front.

And the men appeared to be dragging a corpse along with them. It seemed to be of a figure considerably smaller than they were, still wearing something resembling a hospital gown that had gotten bloodied and ruined beyond possible salvage. The visible arms and legs of the figure were marked by cuts, stitches, large purple patches beneath the skin....there wasn't a lot of question as to why they'd died.

"You go to the fights last night?"

The two approached a copse on the edge of the wood, the path becoming uneven with roots and bumping the body around pretty badly, it occasionally becoming caught upon roots and prompting the men to irritably haul it up.

"Yeah, took Tara along. Some pretty good rounds though most of the humans didn't last as long as I'da liked. Wasn't as good as that time one of them climbed up the fence and had the wolf jumping and going for 'em. Watching Dogs trying to climb is always funny as."

After a bit more walking they came across an area at the end of the path, a shallow pit dug into the sandy soil there. In the pit where a number of bodies that had been unceremoniously thrown in, some fairly complete, some clearly practically taken apart before they were disposed of.

"Nasty. Sooner they fix the damn incinerator the better." one muttered, hitching the body up over his shoulder and using the height to throw it over into the pit.

Once that was done, the two turned and started walking back, still chattering away.

The conversation gradually faded out till only the sound of flies and chirping birds seemed to populate the area, and even then it was some time after that, that the body on the top of the pile gasped, and staggered to its feet, stumbling over the lip of the pit and wretching onto the sand.

"Good, maybe we won't need to rob travelers on their way into town during the Winter. It won't be too long before it's too much of a risk." Doc said despite knowing that them not needing to steal was a pipe dream. "You guys didn't miss anything, just the usual. And bad wolf puns aside, of course I missed you two." Doc then helped Cyrus bring the deer inside, even though he was probably three times as strong as Doc, he still wanted to help.
"So other then playing with Bambi here, did anything else happen?" Doc asked. "What about you Cyrus? Did you catch anything?" Doc liked being around the wolves, they remind him of the actual good times he had working in the dog fights, even if they were so few.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dallas grabbed some cooking supplies and quickly made a small campfire in his cave. Dallas then took his knife and started cutting into the buck. It took about 20 minutes to get the deer cut up and cooked, he made sure to work fast. Dallas took a small bit of wood and used it as a make-shift plate.
Once he finished scarfing down his breakfast Dallas wrapped up the remaining buck and put it into a small cooler. It wouldn't be long before the meat would go bad, but this way it would last at least till supper time. Dallas then kicked some dirt into the fire to put it out.
With breakfast squared away Dallas decided to take a stroll around the forest. After a bit of walking Dallas came across two vampires leaving, luckily they didn't see him, it was way to early to be fighting vampires. The strange thing about these vampires weren't that they were here, but that they weren't searching for something or carried themselves as if they were lost. No they knew where they were going, and by the way they acted they had already done whatever it is they came for.
This got Dallas curious, so he followed their footprints to where they were. After a bit of a trek, Dallas came upon his destination. "Footprints end here. Now let's see what the fangers are up to." Dallas muttered to himself. What he found was shocking. The vampires had buried some kind of burial site. Dallas started to move in for a closer look but then something popped out of the pit. Dallas quickly hid behind a tree and watched the heavily scarred creature.
Dallas sniffed the air to try and get a sense of what he was looking at. It smelled vaguely like a werewolf, but something was off. Maybe it was the dead bodies, but he could smell something was wrong. Dallas took out his pistol in his right hand, and unsheathed his knife in the other. "Don't move." Dallas ordered as he came from behind the tree, and aimed for her head. "Who, or what are you? You don't smell right."

"'Live, Laugh, Love'. Honestly, I'm much more attentive to the first of that list."

---

When a girl meets a boy, it's supposed to be romantic and sweet, isn't it? Well, apparently not always. It would probably help if the boy was, you know, a boy. And that his face wasn't completely covered in blood. And that he wasn't currently following two of her family members to the one building that housed all of her family.

Shaking her head, Vera smothered a sigh. Honestly, what would she do with these kids?

Lifting her scarf up and over her lips and nose, she adjusted her tight jacket. It was only a bit chilly for the autumn season, but she had been sitting guard outside of the church for a few hours at this point. She lounged up in a tree, completely still most of the time, her leg dangling down and her eyes closed as she listened astutely for the sound of movement in the surrounding nature. However, the slow movement of feet had drawn her attention downwards. The voices of Cyrus and Dinah had been gone for a mere minute or two when the sound had risen, causing her to draw a brow upwards.

My, my - the Leech definitely had some balls to not only come to her domain and threaten her people, but to also follow them so closely was ballsy. It would be admirable if it weren't for those two, pesky first problems.

Rolling, her eyes, Vera silently drew and arrow from its sheath, notched it, and quickly let it fly. It drove him, slicing directly through the neck of the vampire. Blood immediately spewed out, and the leech shrieked in pain, clawing at the Garlic-laced, Holy-Water-Drenched, Cross-shaped arrow.

Hey, you can never be too careful, right?

Swinging a leg over the side of the branch that she rested on, she lithely dropped to the ground, her years of martial arts training allowing her to land without fault behind the vampire. The thing in question spun as she dropped, his clawed fingers lashing out at her. She easily leaned backwards, just out of the vamp's reach. This cause the creature to hiss in anger and launch itself in her direction, which she easily side-stepped out of. She yawned, her gloved-hand lifting to pat at her lips.

"Honestly, you are probably the worst leech I've ever had the misfortune to come across. You can't even touch me, let alone take my blood. I thought you vampires were supposed to be a higher-species than I, a mere human? And yet, here I am - completely avoiding your attacks. Hm, I wonder why that is?" she asked, cocking her head to the side and clucking her tongue questioningly.

The leech snarled, but his lips quirked up a bit at the edges. "Whoever said that I was trying very hard to touch you?"

Pausing, she finally shrugged nonchalantly, her disinterest in his hinting nature obviously lighting the flames of his anger once more.

A rustling behind her was the only forewarning she had of the ambush.

It was only one other vampire, but this one obviously wasn't as furious and injured as the one that she had only just been facing. Turning, she made it so that she could see both the new vampire and the old one, her hand moving ever-so-slowly to her sword.

"Man, don't you know it's completely unfair and unethical to outnumber someone? Come on, how do I even stand a chance at this rate?" she whined, sticking her lower lip out in a pout.

The new vampire snickered, his dark eyes flashing. "Well, my dear - seeing as you admit that all hope is lost for you, why not submit yourself to me? I would love to get a delicious taste of you. I can already smell your blood type - and it is a rare one indeed. Ah, perhaps I will keep you around, if only for the fact that your blood is so deliciously different."

Leaning back, she tapped her finger against her lips. "You know, as appealing as that sounds, I think I would much rather do [b]this[/i]!" she said, her hand flashing out so quickly that a vampire's eyes would barely be able to follow her movement. In and instant, she was on the opposite side of the old, already-injured vampire, and in her one hand she held her arrow. In the other, she held her sword, the tip of which was pointed directly at the grassy floor of the earth.

The following few seconds felt like eternity, but finally, out of nowhere, blood began to spew up from the vampire's neck. His head slowly fell to the side, before completely dropping to the Earth. It bounced a couple of times before rolling across the dirt to come to rest at the still-living-vampire's feet.

The body fell a few moments later - first to it's knees, and then to it's front.

Tilting her head, she glanced at the living vampire with a twisted, dark smile.

"Would you still like to keep a pet that could severe your head?"

The man's eyes darkened in fury, his face contorting in unbelievable anger, and he was moving in an instant.

---

"Hey, Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber - both of you should stop bickering and just ... Well ... Shut up entirely," she said, and as she passed by both of them, her fists moved out and, if they had made contact, would clonk on the top of their heads with just enough force to jar them a bit. She had only just returned to the church and the entire front of her body was coated in blood. Half of her face was decorated in it, and her vibrant red hair had darker red splotches throughout it. Her light samurai sword rested in its sheath against her thigh, while her equally-light Recurve Bow tapped gently across her chest and back. Her quiver rested lightly on her right shoulder at this point, the feather of the arrows protruding from over her shoulder if she were to be noticed by anyone in front of her.

Turning slightly, she dropped the back of her hand lightly on her hip, her head tilting back so that her often-disconcerting eyes could easily bore into those of the wolf siblings'.

"Next time, be more careful when you're transporting bloody carcasses, not matter the distances from the church. You're welcome in the Clan for so long as you wish to be here, but you both know the rules. If it is found that either of you pose any sort of threat, or cause any type of harm to those who dwell within the Feral Group, you will be banished and will not be allowed to return."

Letting out a breath, she lifted her hand and rubbed at the back of her head.

"Look kids - I'm not trying to be a bitch. But let's just say that there was a bit of a problem caused by the scent of the bloody deer, and I can't afford to have a bloody riot on my hands," she said, dropping her hand and focusing back on them again. "I can't protect you from everyone and everything, and if enough member of the Feral's protest your being here, I can't save you from the obvious outcome, if such an event were to arise. I'm trying to protect you," she said softly, her Irish accent thickening her voice.

Turning her back to them once more, she brushed her hair back from her face. Moving over to where the rations of food was stored, she hefted a bag that wouldn't have been easily noticed beforehand up onto the wooden table that was there. Untying the strings, she removed several items of fruit that she had picked from the small garden that she had started for everyone, placed them all in a bowl, and moved the bowl to the center of the table.

However, Vera's eyes strayed for a moment to a succulent-looking apple in the bowl. They remained glued to the fruit for several heartbeats, and she was jerked from it only by a light touch to her thigh.

Turning her gaze downward, it caught the watery eyes of Schini, a six-year-old orphan that she had found holed up in a hollow, rotting tree-trunk. Despite the members of the Feral's and her own efforts in the ways of obtaining food and other nourishment for the members of the Group, some of the people were a bit malnourished. It wasn't that they were skin-and-bones - it just wasn't a healthy amount of food that they were receiving.

"Vera, may I have an apple please?" Schini asked, his voice trembling with tears. The poor child was undoubtedly starving, for she had found out countless times that he had either given his food to an animal, or that one of the other children had stolen it from him.

"Schini, what happened to your luncheon rations?"

His dirt-smudged face tilted downwards a bit, his toe scuffing the small sheen of dirt that was on the floor.

"... Hala took it ..." he mumbled, a soft sniffle being heard at the end of his words.

Stifling a sigh, she reached out and snatched the apple up, wiped it clean with a cloth, before holding it out to him. "Here, you can eat this one. And this time, don't let one of the other children bully you into giving it up to them," she said sternly, before reaching out to lightly ruffle his hair. He beamed a smile, took a large, hearty bite, before taking off to God-knew-where in the church.

"You're too easy on the boy."

"Ah, Margaret-Anne - always a pleasure. And what do I owe this lovely chance to speak to the all-ruling queen?" Vera asked, the sarcasm almost tangible enough to cut.

The older woman sneered in her direction, her hand lifting to waggle a finger of disapproval.

"You're far too easy on that child. He's going to grow up weak - a loser."

"Margaret-Anne, he's six. He can barely even hold a weapon, let alone wield one."

"I'm just saying, if I were his mother, I'd-"

"Well, you aren't - and neither am I for that matter. I merely took him in, just as I did everyone else here. If you hold such intense and immense qualms when pertaining to my leadership and my ways, than I suggest you find elsewhere to live. Not that there is any such sanctuary out there, but you're welcome to look for one," she said snarkily.

The woman gaped at her, her anger evident in her shock. She suddenly waggled her finger again, before turning and scurrying away, muttering to herself as she did.

Shaking her head, Vera scowled after Margaret-Anne. "'Tis only proof that one does not truly and fully grow up and mature," she murmured, turning back to face the large entrance room that had once been the ownership of pews, idols, bibles, candelabras, and far more objects that were often used in that of the Catholic Religion for mass. Scattered throughout that room was the base cover-up of the feral Group's operations. If they were ever to be found by the vampires, they would not discover them easily.

Instead of their equipment or rooms in the entrance area, they kept only their immediate supplies in the vicinity. Their common weapons, such as arrows, swords, daggers, holy water, a variety of holy items, and like-wise. Vera had long before disbanded the need for guns - not only did they cause and unnecessary amount of noise that drew not only vampires, but other predators that were long-forgotten by many when the vampires came into play, but they also proved useless against vampires. The only thing that they could do was slow them down, but not even long enough for a person to flee.

In addition to the weapons, they had a small array of food and a small amount of their stored water up there, in order for returning scouts, scavengers, and otherwise to be able to seek immediate relief of their bodies' needs.

That was only the beginning, however. Unbeknownst to anyone who had never been in this particular church, there was a dungeon kept below the building, built into the earth. It was a dreary place when she had first arrived, but after nearly a decade of organizing the Feral Group, she had made it into a warm, welcoming home. There were more than enough rooms - cells, whatever you wished to call them - to go around, along with enough home-made cots, blankets, and other essentials to go around. So long as the person was willing to assist in anything that the Group needed, they were allowed to stay.

However, that was not where the building ends. There was a small room that was used to teach the children and teenagers that had come into the Feral's care, along with a training room that Vera used most often to train in new members, a science room that was used for medical research of medicinal plants - that of which Jason Lachawr was the Head of -, a smaller room for people to relax in, and a rather large room that was used solely for the purpose of weaponry and machinery. Not only was there a large array of weapons in it, but also quite an immense amount of technological devices that she worked on quite a bit. Sometimes, she would go three nights without sleep while working on a new weapon or device to use against the vampires - and it wasn't useless in the least. She had succeeded in creating several new weapons that were quite useful on the field. Garlic-bombs, Holy-Water-Sprinklers, Cross-Bows; literally, they were cross-bows. They shot out crossed laced with garlic and doused in Holy Water. Those were only the beginning.

After the weaponry room, there was a storage room designed only for warm-season food, and a storage room solely for food for the cold seasons.

Crossing her arms, Vera leaned her bottom back against the table, her ankles moving over one-another.

"I believe it is past time for me to call a meeting of the masses, don't you agree, Mr. Lachawr?" she asked, her eyebrow quirking upwards inquisitively.

"The usual. Not much to be said. Woods have been quiet enough." Dinah responded as she grabbed her utility knife to start skinning the deer. She did most of the butchering herself, as well as treating the hides, something that most people seemed to stay well away from. The shed out on the edge of the church yard dedicated to it invariably stunk like a dead pole cat when it was taking place, and that was to human noses. A werewolf nose was considerably more sensitive, so it could not have been pleasant. Still, it allowed for furs and leather for clothing in limited amounts, which allowed them to repair stuff they'd otherwise have to steal to replace.

Cyrus who had been holding the deer's legs dropped them onto the flags once they were done hauling it, looking over to Doc over the other side of the animal.
"Nothing worth having. Woke up with a shredded badger nearby which I suspect was me, and something really nasty on my hands and face. Smelled like the goddamn grave. Makes me wonder if the leeches are burying people in the woods now. Always up to something, and of course The Wolf is all over anything dead. Think it was rolling in the stuff or or something...." he was going to speak more when Vera showed up and promptly hit them.

Something that ever-stoic and apparently resigned Cyrus took without a flinch caused Dinah to yell, slipping with her knife, slicing not only the hide but also the back of her hand. The werewolf shouted an obscenity, hopped to her feet again and glared, not in the least bit impressed by the lecture.

"Yeah, yeah I'm such a bitch for bringing you all three days worth of food. I'll remember to know better next time. "she growled.

Cyrus was not the most personable of people, but he did have the virtue of consistency. He was ill-tempered and yet tended to stay more or less on one even keel all of the time. Di, on the other hand, was moreof a creature of extremes. As cheerful as she could be one minutes was always offset by how angry she could be the next, and her brother could tell she was about to go off on one and did not relish it.
"Don't you think it's a little early to be getting on your soap box?" he asked.

Dinah was not dissuaded.
"Fuck off Cy. I spend all my time trying to get enough supplies together so people won't have to steal this winter, skinning them, butchering them, salting them, carting disgusting fucking bags of deer guts miles away from the church so no-one cottons on, and the rest of you don't even want to known how nasty tanning the hides is, and all I ever get is shit for it! Screw it, you can deal with the damn thing yourselves if having the dirty wolf around dealing with your food such a burden to you. I'm going for a walk."

The young werewolf stalked over to the door, punching the masonry so hard it dislodged some of the mortar before walking off into the churchyard. Cyrus had absolutely no intention of stopping her, partially because once she was in that kind of mood she was not listening to anybody, least of all her brother who she didn't listen to even when happy, and partially because he was less than pleased at the welcome himself.

The fact that their inhumanity got brought up so frequently as a topic was a sore spot, and that was kind of an understatement. The two had been part of the group for going on fifteen years, since Cyrus was six and Dinah was four, and Cyrus had hoped that they had moved past the 'if you slip up we'll kick you out because you're wolves' stage, but it was always clear that it hadn't, and in a sense it was Dinah who was a lot more upset about that fact than he was.

Regardless of what she said, Cyrus was pretty sure DInah wanted people to like her. Far as he was concerned that was her first mistake. He could not really care less what people thought of him ultimately and it'd worked pretty well for him.


-----

The figure who had seemed to be dead until recently, was knelt on the sand, forehead resting against the ground as it struggled to catch its breath.

That was until the click of a gun being levelled forced her to her feet.

The figure, a female, stood up to full height....which admittedly was not that impressive. She probably did not even clear 5'3 despite being, if not an adult, not far off it. Reddish hair hung down her back, chocked and matted with blood and dirty, and the eyes that turned to regard the man were not the same colour. One was a sort of greyish blue, the other cloudy and bloody, clearly of no use.

She regarded the gun for a moment, then looked to the man holding it, as she drew in rapid breaths, after a few moments beginning to speak up.
"...D-designation 22475...."Ragna"....f-forth generation nordic werewolf subspecies import....academic and commercial usage...p-property of Morningside Research and...Education Centre..."

It was spoken in the intonation-devoid manner of something that was learned by rote. Many wolves had been taught to memorize their designation and repeat it when asked, as being a shape-changer it was difficult to supply them with any ID. However the majority of wolves with such designations were law enforcement or security. 'Academic and Commercial' was a designation category not often used, and indicated a werewolf not trained in combat....and for most 'employers' of wolves, combat was the only thing that interested them.

Dallas studied the scarred female werewolf as she started giving off her designation. "Ragna? Morningside?" Dallas repeated to himself. "Academic and commercial usage? What are you talking about? All our kind is to the vampires are soldiers, glorified cannon fodder."
Dallas then began looking around at their surroundings. "This isn't the best place to be having this discussion. Come on, I've got a hideout not to far from here." Dallas then motioned for her to move in the general direction his cave was in.
"Name's Dallas. Don't ask for my designation, I don't work for the leeches anymore." Dallas introduced himself, somewhat rudely.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Doc glared at Vera when she started berating the werewolves. Dinah stormed off as he expected her to. Doc had thought about going after her and try to calm her down, but he knew it wouldn't help any.
"Yes, I suppose it's time for a meeting. Although I suspect Oscar isn't here. He's probably out doing whatever it is he does." Doc replied. "I don't understand that boy's fascination with the city. It's nothing glamorous."
Doc then went up to Vera's side and whispered in her ear. "Is it really necessary to berate Dinah and Cyrus like that? They've proven themselves plenty of times. Their place in this group should be as secure as anyone else's."